


Both Feet in the Grave

by constant_vellichor



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Lichtenberg Scars, M/M, Whump, a.k.a What Happened When They Were Stuck In That Tomb For Like A Week (The Peter Nureyev Remix), although there are some reasonably graphic descriptions of wounds, and cleaning thereof, in case that's not your thing, just me absolutely wailing on peter for 3.5k words. sorry bro, something for everyone - Freeform, takes place immediately prior to/during Angel of Brahma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-24
Updated: 2020-01-24
Packaged: 2021-02-22 17:33:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22386655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/constant_vellichor/pseuds/constant_vellichor
Summary: There was time for many things, down in the sunless, stifling depths of that Martian tomb, that there had not been before.(Or, vignettes from our heroes' imprisonment. It's not all mind-reading and self-sacrifice, after all.)
Relationships: Peter Nureyev/Juno Steel
Comments: 28
Kudos: 152





	Both Feet in the Grave

**Author's Note:**

> My first foray into ship fic for a while! I love these fucking idiots.
> 
> The working title for this was 'Tomb Sweet Tomb'.

There was time for many things, down in the sunless, stifling depths of that Martian tomb, that there had not been before.

Finally- _finally_ \- there is time for them to sleep. Peter had laid his head almost everywhere it was possible for a man to do so- huddled on flattened cardboard behind dumpsters as a child on Brahma, belly-down in foxholes with packed Earthen dirt around him, narrow single beds in Outer Rim safe houses, on one memorable occasion in the Venusian presidential palace’s master bedroom- but he had never slept so long or so deep as he did that first night on a bedroll in their burial chamber, Juno sprawled next to him with his arm heavy over Peter’s waist. Peter, much to his later chagrin, was far too exhausted and aching to properly appreciate such a position in the manner it deserved to be, even if he did wake up with a crick in his neck and creases on his face from where he had slept on his glasses.

That first morning in the cell (at least, Peter _assumes_ it’s morning- his internal clock is very, very good, but after three hours of sleep the night before, a car chase, several train-related near-death experiences and one very awkward limousine ride, he can forgive himself if he’s miscalculated just this once) Peter allows himself one minute after he wakes, dry-mouthed with the particular bitterness that comes with having slept badly, to enjoy how Juno’s arm falls _just so_ , rough fingertips curling above Peter’s breastbone as he drools slightly in his sleep. Then Peter extricates himself as gently as he can from the sleeping detective’s clutching limbs and begins to take stock of their situation.

They’re in a small room made of dense, sandy stone, disturbing carvings on the walls (Peter’s eyes slide over the friezes when he tries to look directly at them, so he takes the hint and doesn’t) and fine red Martian dust coating the floor and piling up in the corners, the powder pitted an inch deep where their cheap nylon bedrolls lie. A coffin of darker stone is shoved against one wall, doing its best to loom ominously. Two water bottles and a bucket are leaning against another. And, heart-sinkingly, a thick steel door with an intimidatingly up-to-date digital lock is embedded into a third.

Peter checks his pockets- he’s still wearing his suit, and while he’s most certainly lost some of his usual array of tools he might still have- no. A bent needle without the accompanying thread, a ball of wax, pistachio shells (possibly from the garbage chute and possibly not), three-quarters of a bottle of his cologne, a handful of roulette chips. He can make fun of Miasma’s goons’ lack of criminal style all he likes, but they know how to shake a man down. It’s possible that just smashing up the lock enough will open the door, but that plan will most likely result in half a dozen warning shots to his chest. After all, he _is_ the disposable one in their little situation.

There’s a rasping groan behind him, and Peter turns to watch as the non-expendable member of their dynamic duo creaks sluggishly awake.

“N’reyev.”

“Good morning, detective. I hope the ancient Martian torture cell is treating you well?”

“S’well as an ancient Martian torture cell can. Do we have a plan?”

He props himself up on one elbow, stretches, and the stained trench coat that had been holding itself together so valiantly throughout their escapades finally gives up, shoulder seams popping apart and threadbare sleeve puddling on the sandy floor. Juno looks at it blearily for a moment, then sighs.

“I liked that coat.”

“I’m sure we can find you another back on the surface,” Peter says airily, still half-focused on the contents of his suit jacket- half a broken lipstick crushed at the bottom of his pocket makes a sticky, crimson mess of his hand when he digs around.

“Do we have a plan for getting back up there, then?”

“Oh, it shouldn’t be too difficult. I’ll wager a guess that this isn’t the first time either of us has been stuck in a cell, and I’m sure I’ve picked up something useful on Miasma these past few months that might come in handy. We’ll be out of here before that coat of yours can even disintegrate properly.”

***

It becomes apparent, lying screaming on that table while Juno yells something his ringing ears and shattering brain can’t make out, that they’re not going to be able to leave here so easily.

***

Despite the… less-than-comfortable circumstances of their imprisonment, at first their little cell is not entirely unbearable. Peter fiddles with his internal clock until it resembles something that might be called passable- as far as he can figure from the shafts of weak sunlight from the grille a mile above, Miasma and her silent assistants test them for four hours and leave them to recover as well as they can for another five before the cycle starts again. They feed them the same tasteless algae-protein nutrient bricks and lukewarm water sporadically- whenever one of the lackeys remembers, Peter supposes.

Both of them smell _terrible_ , too- Peter’s still in the same velvet jacket he wore playing Rangian Street Poker in the casino, stained with sweat, sand and garbage, and after the untimely demise of Juno’s coat the detective is in a similar situation. Peter’s keeping as clean as possible with spit and sparing cologne application for the first two days before Juno shows him the trick of scrubbing his skin and hair with the fine granules of Martian sand steadily filtering down from the surface. An old Hyperion trick, he explains when Peter presses. Works in a pinch when the water to your district gets shut off after a sandstorm.

Peter’s worried about Juno, though- their little sand trick doesn’t work well on blood, and Juno is covered in it. Every time they’re thrown back into the cell after another gruelling session, blood is leaking from his ears or dripping from his nose or bubbling from the corners of his mouth as he breaths raggedly, slumped half-unconscious against the stone coffin with his hands curled stiffly into fists. His right eye is always, _always_ seeping red. It’s- confronting, to see his detective like this, to say the least, and more so since Juno won’t even let him _help_. _Fuss_ is maybe the more accurate word, says a wry, niggling voice at the back of Peter’s head, and he ignores it resolutely. Still, he gives Juno his space for the first few days, stays cheerful and keeps his stinging, bleary eyes peeled for an opening for what he’s sure will be a cunning and glorious escape.

Until he notices the scars.

Before meeting Miasma, Peter Nureyev had exactly three visible scars. After all, when one’s life and livelihood depend largely on being able to become whoever one wants whenever convenient, identifying marks- scars, tattoos, a particularly handsome face (though there’s little Peter can do about the latter, obviously) are inadvisable to possess. Peter had three that had stuck around through thick, thin and fastidious cocoa butter application. A gouge on his shoulder from an inadvisable knife fight as a cash-strapped nineteen-year-old, a thick slice through the fleshy part of his left hand after he’d gotten a little overzealous escaping handcuffs with a plasma cutter, and a faded, jagged slash across the back of his calf that he vaguely remembers getting as an urchin on Brahma, before Mag picked him up.

He’d been fortunate in that all of his previous wounds had been easy to hide under clothing or gloves. These new ones were… more extensive.

Peter wakes up sometime during their third night in the tomb- maybe the fourth? – to use the bucket in the corner and tip a thin trickle of water from their shared bottle into his mouth. He’s kneeling next to the vaulted door, the artificial red of its hazard lights flashing gently on and off, on and off. His dirty, stained shirtsleeves, cufflinks long since abandoned, flap around his elbows, and as he lifts the bottle over his head, he catches a glimpse of his forearms in the low, pulsing light.

He drops the plastic bottle with an echoing thud and stares with horror at his ruined skin.

Angry red welts stretch from rubbed-raw wrists, spidery and crawling their hateful way up the insides of his wrists nearly to the elbows. There are blisters there too, clustered in yellowish colonies around the worst of the marks, half of them burst and stinging, leaking pinkish fluid- he must have been clawing at them in his sleep, he thinks numbly. He pulls up the leg of his trousers and- yes, the welts sit there too, though not quite as visibly.

It’s the electricity, Peter knows, the currents Miasma’s masked assistants force under his skin again and again as he lies cuffed to the table. Idly, as his fingers trace almost independently over the marks on his arm, he thinks that the lightning-strike pattern burned into his skin might have almost been beautiful, had he chosen it for himself. If it hadn’t thickened and reddened and bubbled so very _grotesquely_.

Peter’s… not quite sure how long he kneels there staring at his limbs, wounds pulsing in time with the lights. He’s certainly not sure how much longer he would have continued to sit there if he hadn’t felt the grounding warmth of a calloused hand gripping his shoulder.

“Nureyev, what- oh _shit_.”

And Peter tries very, very hard to play it off, to say something snarky or flirty or deflecting, because really, what are a few scars to what Juno’s been through, what Juno’s _going_ through, to a face and a mind dripping blood, to the slow destruction of a force of _good_ in this galaxy the likes of which Peter has never seen?

But he can’t. And what forces its way between Peter’s clenched teeth instead is a whimper.

He sags and topples sideways into Juno and the lady catches him, which Peter would comment upon if he was in a fit state to comment upon anything. Truthfully, it’s nothing particularly special; Juno grunts as the bulk of Peter’s torso hits him at an awkward angle, and he manoeuvres him clumsily until Peter is slumped against the wall, arms clutched protectively to his chest. Juno studies him for a second before turning away, muttering to himself as he rifles through their small pool of resources tucked inside Peter’s bedroll. Peter watches him though unfocused eyes, hearing the soft clink of glass and the distinctive sound of tearing fabric.

Juno shuffles back over, sets something down carefully next to him- Peter, raising his head, recognises the bundle as strips of fabric torn from Juno’s shredded trench coat. Bandages. And it’s then that Peter works out what Juno’s doing, and his chest swells with so many emotions at once he thinks he might tear himself to pieces with them.

“Hey. Nureyev. Hold out your arm. We gotta disinfect those.”

Juno has one hand outstretched, waiting for Peter to take it. In the other, he holds the bottle of Peter’s cologne. And somehow, ridiculously, _that_ is the sight that snaps Peter out of his painful reverie. And, instead of offering to do it himself or thanking Juno or telling him… something else, Peter opens his mouth and croaks out-

“That was _expensive_.”

And Juno _laughs_. Honest-to-god _giggles_ , inside that terrible place, halfway to starving and stained every which way with blood, and says-

“Probably cost more than my apartment, sure. But it’ll work in a pinch. Me and B- uh, it’s another trick I learnt back during my… misguided childhood back in Hyperion.”

Peter looks at him, so earnest and beautiful, and holds out his arm. Juno takes it gingerly by the wrist, turning it so the soft flesh on the inside of his forearm faces upwards, and pops the lid off the bottle with his teeth.

“Do your worst, detective.” Peter rasps, a little energy seeping back into his voice.

“Christ, I hope you’re not allergic to anything in here.” Juno replies.

“If I _was_ , detective, I’m sure would have noticed by n- _fuck_.”

Peter tries not to swear, but he thinks the combination of the truly fantastic sting of cologne on weeping blisters and fifteen hundred creds quite literally down the drain warrants it.

Air hisses between his teeth, and his head tips back against the wall. Juno murmurs a ‘sorry’ before starting on the other arm. Peter tries not to watch as Juno cleans away leaking pus and dampens the heavy tan strips of coat with more cologne before bandaging Peter’s arms wrist to elbow. Juno declares wrapping the fainter marks on Peter’s calves unnecessary, but wipes them down with cologne anyway. He tucks the considerably-less-full bottle back inside the bedroll just before Peter drags himself the ten feet back into the corner they sleep in and collapses back on top of it. Juno lies stiffly back down next to him.

They’re silent for a minute before their hands find each other.

Peter grips hard and feels Juno’s answering squeeze. When he wakes, Miasma will rip off his bandages and electricity will worm its way back into his skin. But he still has a little while to sleep.

***

After a while, anticipation of torture becomes less of a nebulous eventuality looming constantly in the middle distance and more of a fact of life, like arguing over who gets the larger portion of rations (each of them thinks the other needs it more) and nicknaming their various veiled jailers (“The irritating one. That’s Elon Mask.” “I don’t get it, Nureyev.”).

After a while, they’re just _bored_.

They can’t sleep through all of their time in that cell, after all, no matter how little of it they want to spend awake, and there’s precious little to do. In the early days, this leads to a checkerboard traced in the sand with pieces made out of buttons and chunks of crumbling stone, which works marvellously until they simultaneously realise they’re each playing by completely different planetary rules and both cheating so hard they haven’t even noticed until a dozen moves in. Juno attempts to ‘ _detect’_ every square inch of their cell, which culminates in him declaring that the stone coffin in the corner is, in fact, the _true_ final resting place of Croesus Kanagawa’s secret twin. (It’s empty, of course, and Nureyev’s left oddly disappointed. Juno’s faux deductions _had_ seemed very promising.)

Peter, to his own credit, spends a rather large portion of his time trying to come up with a way to escape, no matter how half-heartedly. Makeshift lockpicks are crafted out of everything from Juno’s bent earrings to the detached arm of Peter’s glasses- half of them wouldn’t even work on an analogue lock, let alone the tech they’re dealing with, but it’s something to keep him busy. After he runs out of things to fiddle with, walls are knocked on, grates are removed, and crumbling stone picked apart piece by painstaking piece until Peter’s fingers are sore and bleeding, and no escape route is discovered.

Peter gives up on the sixth day. Possibly the seventh? It’s becoming harder and harder to tell, what with the exhaustion and periodic electrocution making his head spin like a tipsy debutante.

Despite this, it’s becoming abundantly clear that their time here is coming to an end, one way or another. Miasma, somehow, is becoming more menacingly impatient with every test she performs on Juno, and her assistants even more heavy-handed in their treatment of Peter in his little side room.

That day, neither of them is saying much. Peter is attempting futilely and without any real enthusiasm to choke down his portion of the nutrient capsules that are passing as their meal for the day, and Juno’s sprawled out on his back in a half-doze, another wad of rags from his coat pressed to his eye to try to stem the constant flow of gore. Aside from when he exerts his abilities, Peter doesn’t think he can feel it much anymore- the nerve endings seem to be steadily winking out like distant supernovas.

Peter doesn’t know what makes him do it- the dehydration, the sight of Juno looking so forlorn, possibly the desire to do anything else other than choke down yet another tasteless mouthful of gritty vitamin paste- but before he can really consider his decision he’s rolling over to face Juno, shuffling closer and drawing stiff knees up near his chest.

“Juno.”

Juno grunts.

“What’s your favourite colour?”

 _That_ gets his attention- he turns onto his side and drags himself into a half-sit. The bloody rag falls away from his face, and the eye behind it is swollen, the red of burst blood vessels webbed against the white and the pupil misshapen, bleeding into the iris. Peter tries his best not to look away.

“I’m sorry?” says Juno incredulously.

“What,” repeats Peter, “Is you favourite colour?”

“Didn’t realise this tomb doubled as a summer camp dorm, Nureyev.”

“I just find it odd that two people with so many shared near-death experiences under their respective belts know so little about each other, that’s all.”

Juno raises an eyebrow.

“It’s not like there’s much else to do down here other than get to know each other, Detective. Unless you’d care for another game of checkers?”

“Just gouge my good eye out instead. Probably would result in less agony on my end.” He rolls back over. Peter continues to sit for a second, trying to work up the will to go back to his nutrient capsules, when- a sigh.

“Yellow.”

Peter grins.

“Unexpected for someone who complained so much about having to wear a non-monochrome jacket to a _casino resort_.”

“That was because you have terrible taste in formalwear.”

“Says the man who’s worn the same coat for the past decade.”

“Why would I need to get _another_ coat when that one is still- you know what? Fine. What’s your favourite colour then?”

“Mmm, it varies. Rex Glass’ was purple. Duke Rose’s was whatever Dahlia said his was.”

“And Peter Nureyev’s?”

“You know, I’ve never really thought about it.”

“You can’t have _never_ thought about it-”

It continues like that- asinine, free-flowing banter that Peter was sure wouldn’t have been nearly as easy if either of them hadn’t been dizzy with hunger and thirst and longing for sunlight. Peter spins stories of his most daring escapades, embellished only a _little_ for his listener’s benefit, and Juno tells him the concerning yet hilarious tale of how he met Cassandra Kanagawa in an Uptown bar. When their throats run too dry for voice-acting, they move to smaller things- how Juno got the scar across his nose. The one and only time Peter had ever attempted to learn to cook. They talk and talk and talk until Peter’s voice turns to a rasp and Juno’s yawning every second word, and then they talk some more.

(There are some things they don’t say. Juno doesn’t learn what it’s like to be sixteen and sobbing in a grimy Outer Rim restroom as you scrub your father’s blood from under perfectly manicured fingernails, and Peter doesn’t ask what the jagged characters of the old stick-and-poke tattoo on Juno’s shoulder blade mean. Some things are too dark to talk about in a place like that.)

When they eventually fall asleep, though, it’s with mouths half-open and smiling, each of them still mumbling into the other’s shoulder as they drift away.

***

Peter’s opening finally arrives on the eighth day.

Juno’s- cagey. Prickly. And Peter’s carefully maintained verbal filter seems to be clogging, finally. So, he offers Juno a quick rifle through his brain. Just a little one. So he can _know_. So _Peter_ can know, after all this, that if Juno leaves him, it won’t be for everything he’s done.

He sits there, Juno’s rough, clammy hands in his cool ones, as a prickly, meandering feeling travels up his spine and seeps into his mind, like his entire nerve system has fallen asleep. He _feels_ Juno, treading oh-so-gently through the pathways of his brain, and wonders absently where he’s going.

Then Peter goes away for a little while, and when he comes back, Juno’s lying on the floor, enough blood gushing from his eye that it’s already coated most of his face. And Peter _yells_.

At first his shriek is an animal thing- no real purpose to it, no finesse. And then the last of the mind-numbness leaches away, and Peter’s thoughts begin to tick over again, frantically.

It’s easy enough to lure the guard into the cell after a scream like that, to leave him choking on the floor and take his uniform jacket and his mask and shrug them on. Juno’s stirring now, moaning and raising a weak hand to wipe the blood away from his mouth, and Peter scrambles over, shouting for him to _get up_ as footfalls begin to echo outside the tomb.

He can’t leave Juno here. He _can’t_ \- he’ll shred himself apart with it, leaving such a bright thing here in the airless, coppery dark. If he doesn’t, though, he’ll shred Juno apart too, or Miasma will catch up and kill Peter and there will be no-one to remember Juno Steel was ever here at all.

The footsteps in the corridor are louder, now, than Peter’s stuttering heartbeat, and he knows he has to go.

He promises Juno he won’t disappear one last time. Presses a kiss to his forehead, hard. Then he runs out of the tomb, towards the air and the sun and the light, and wants nothing more than to stay.

**Author's Note:**

> peter's hand scar brought to you by my hand scar! except his is cool and i got mine in year seven metalwork when i tried to watch the rasputin music video and saw through brass at the same time. priceless.
> 
> also don't fucking use cologne as disinfectant. once again- they are very stupid.
> 
> I'm on Tumblr at constant_vellichor and requests are always open so PLEASE come and yell at me about the Junoverse. Or comment. That works too.


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